rs armed
with spears and javelins and archers, were much in use. A thousand
chariots was the regular force. Warriors wore buskins on their legs,
and were sometimes gagged in order to prevent the alarm being given to
the enemy. In action the chariots occupied the centre, the bowmen the
left, the spearmen the right flank. Elephants were sometimes used in
attack. Spy-kites, signal-flags, hook-ladders, horns, cymbals, drums,
and beacon-fires were in use. The ears of the vanquished were taken
to the king, quarter being rarely if ever given.

After the establishment of absolute monarchical government standing
armies became the rule. Military science was taught, and soldiers
sometimes trained for seven years. Chariots with upper storeys or
spy-towers were used for fighting in narrow defiles, and hollow squares
were formed of mixed chariots, infantry, and dragoons. The weakness of
disunion of forces was well understood. In the sixth century A.D. the
massed troops numbered about a million and a quarter. In A.D. 627
there was an efficient standing army of 900,000 men, the term of
service being from the ages of twenty to sixty. During the Mongol
dynasty (1280-1368) there was a navy of 5000 ships manned by 70,000
trained fighters. The Mongols completely revolutionized tactics and
improved on all the military knowledge of the time. In 1614 the Manchu
'Eight Banners,' composed of Manchus, Mongolians, and Chinese, were
instituted. The provincial forces, designated the Army of the Green
Standard, were divided into land forces and marine forces, superseded
on active service by 'braves' (_yung_), or irregulars, enlisted and
discharged according to circumstances. After the war with Japan in
1894 reforms were seriously undertaken, with the result that the army
has now been modernized in dress, weapons, tactics, etc., and is by
no means a negligible quantity in the world's fighting forces. A
modern navy is also being acquired by building and purchase. For
many centuries the soldier, being, like the priest, unproductive,
was regarded with disdain, and now that his indispensableness for
defensive purposes is recognized he has to fight not only any actual
enemy who may attack him, but those far subtler forces from over the
sea which seem likely to obtain supremacy in his military councils,
if not actual control of his whole military system. It is, in my view,
the duty of Western nations to take steps before it is too late to
avert this great